Probably going to regret this, but if someone had just* given you a brand new Acer laptop, and you'd got bored waiting for Windows to install** and put it back in its little backpack and forgotten about it, and now have just started thinking, “actually I'm going to need a laptop for work in a few weeks”, how difficult would it be to install some flavour of Linux on it, and which flavour would you choose?

* early last September
** mid-September

I suppose the first question is, do I need to finish installing Windows, because that was really pissing me off.

Can I get a bootable cofbren (what's that, a memory stick?) via my perfectly good Macbook and stick that in the Acer and stop wasting time on the Windows installation?

@neil Thanks Neil, I'll try that, but maybe sit through the Windows install process first.

I mostly just need a browser and maybe some kind of slideshow software — ideally something I can import Promethean Inspire slides into, since that's what I've been using for the last few years.

@nic I'd say very easy, Nic, providing you can open those slides in LibreOffice or (looking at the website) Chrome. https://support.prometheanworld.com/s/downloads?language=en_US

Kubuntu 26.04 LTS is easy to install and use and is well supported. It's what I'm using anyway.

https://kubuntu.org/download/

@gavin57 diolch, yeah a browser extension would be easier than having to convert several hundred slide files.

@nic

how difficult would it be to install some flavour of Linux on it

Probably quite easy.

which flavour would you choose?

Probably Gentoo (or maybe Guix, Debian, or Alpine), but that’s just what I would choose, not necessarily a recommendation. It’s definitely not the easiest to install. If you’re new to Linux, I would probably recommend Debian instead (I’ve also heard that Linux Mint/LMDE is good for that, but never used it myself)

@noisytoot that's 2 (out of 4) recs for Debian, so I'll probably go with that, just because I'm clueless, and a bit nervous. It’ll be fine.